The saviour? Hird's Essendon challenge

UPDATE: Essendon to announce new coach at 10am press conference. Essendon members this morning were advised of a free live webcast as the club's new coach addresses fans for the very first time.

FOOTBALL this September did not require another encore, but Essendon's dwindling fortunes demanded it. James Hird has provided it. The 37-year-old Bombers champion will return to Windy Hill to coach the club next season as part of a dream team that could still include Geelong premiership coach Mark Thompson.

After a historic weekend in which Collingwood and St Kilda kept alive their premiership dreams, Hird and the club he emotionally left three seasons ago were still putting the finishing touches to a powerful off-field unit designed to rejuvenate the once powerful Essendon Football Club.

James Hird has hopes for his old cohort Mark Thompson (below) to join him at Essendon. Photos: Getty Images, Pat Scala

Hird will become not only the highest-paid rookie coach in AFL history - his experience has been restricted to his son's junior team at Prahran - but also one of the highest-paid coaches, in a deal worth around $1 million in his first season. Hird did not return calls from The Age yesterday before heading to Fox Sports to film the TV program On the Couch.

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''I've put my hat in the ring and gone through the process,'' Hird said last night on the show. ''I haven't been offered that job. I am very hopeful that does happen and am excited it could happen.''

While Hird has hedged on his coaching ambitions and publicly changed his mind several times over the past two months, The Age believes he has been discussing the prospect of returning to the club with chairman David Evans, his close friend, for a significant part of this season. He has been officially interviewed twice by the club's coaching panel for the job.

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Thompson, another former Essendon premiership captain who played alongside Hird in the ''Baby Bombers'' flag-winning side of 1993, remains Hird's first choice to work alongside him as senior lieutenant. Thompson has repeatedly told the Cats he will see out his contract, despite the ''out'' clause in his deal, which has one year remaining. As recently as last night Geelong chief executive Brian Cook scoffed at reports that Thompson would turn his back on the club. Given Thompson's disapproval of Gary Ablett's expected decision to join Gold Coast, his defection would be extraordinary.

''I would really like to speak to 'Bomber' [Thompson] but he has a contract at Geelong,'' Hird said.

A director of sports marketing company Gemba, Hird told his fellow directors last Thursday that he would be applying for the Essendon job - something he declared about a month ago he would definitely not do for ''three to five years''.

Former premiership teammates Sean Wellman and Dean Wallis look certain to join Hird as assistant coaches, while former Bombers football manager Danny Corcoran remains on the hit list of the man who claimed five club championships at Essendon along with a Brownlow, a Norm Smith and several Anzac medals. Corcoran is contracted to the Super 15 rugby team the Melbourne Rebels.

Mark Williams, another premiership coach who was an assistant at Essendon in Hird's early years, was yesterday interviewed by the Bombers. A press conference is expected before Essendon's best-and-fairest awards on Friday night.

Having convinced Hird to bring forward his coaching ambitions, the Essendon hierarchy refused to restrict its search to the best available candidates and sounded out a number of unavailable ones. That included Western Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade, who has one year remaining on his contract at Whitten Oval, and Thompson.

The appointment will not be seen as a coaching coup by many industry figures, mindful of Michael Voss's struggles at the Brisbane Lions after taking the job with little coaching experience. But for the Essendon faithful, who as a noisy and threatening pressure group helped see off Matthew Knights after three seasons and two years before his contract expired, the appointment will be cause for celebration. ''I want this club to be successful again … there's no doubt there's a risk for me to take this job but there's also a risk for Essendon going down this path,'' Hird said.

When Hird captained Essendon to a premiership in 2000, the Bombers were ahead of Collingwood financially and near equal to it in influence and membership. By the time Knights was sacked, the club faced loss of membership, dropping attendances and potential political upheaval. Knights was paid $1.2 million to leave, a decision seen as financially expedient.

21 comments so far

While James doesn't have the most experience, he will lead a team with much experience, and will be a rally point to the faithful to pay their fees and to buy tickets. James will learn quickly, will be an inspiration to younger players to do the 1% deeds that make a team successful, and is smart enough to listen to the coaching panel's advice. I think appointing James is a valid decision.

Commenter

bomberMurfy

Location

Sydney

Date and time

September 28, 2010, 7:11AM

James, please remember that successful coaches focus on the battlers in the team. You were a natural, whereas players like Sheeds fought hard every week to get picked, so he knew how to talk to and coach the bottom half of the team in skills. If you take this position, which I hope you do, please focus on the battlers, the smotherers, the tacklers, the shepherders, the guys that earned you clean space to show your excellence.

Commenter

bomberMurfy

Location

Sydney

Date and time

September 28, 2010, 7:18AM

Good luck James. As a Saints supporter, I'd say you're that rare type of player who has everybody's respect - Nathan Buckley is another. I hope you can turn your onfield genius into coaching success. A strong Essendon will make a better league.

Commenter

David

Location

Rowville

Date and time

September 28, 2010, 7:39AM

A great player does not necessarily mean a great coach or even a good one, as has been seen many times in the past. Essendon have just gotten rid of a great player. I feel sorry for Hird; he is taking control of ... well have a good look at what he is taking control of; a team with a massive morale problem and possibly lacking in the talent required to lift them back to the top.Also, morale is an insidious thing to overcome because in most cases it comes from the top and filters down. Maybe the members need to take a good hard look at what goes on behind the scenes at their club.

Commenter

crowsfeet

Date and time

September 28, 2010, 7:45AM

Interesting that Essendon are now describing themselves using the rhetoric of Richmond. Three decades of mediocrity coming up.

Commenter

dejavu

Date and time

September 28, 2010, 7:48AM

As long as they get the best coaching team available he will be fine but don't expect too much and look at three years down the track before judgement is made.

Commenter

Mike

Location

Coburg

Date and time

September 28, 2010, 7:53AM

I admire James Hird enormously, but I think this is a bad call. I would have liked to see him serve a few years as assistant to Mark Willams, Dean Laidley or, better still, Mark Thompson. The experience ( or lack of it) in the Voss case is an object lesson

Commenter

Cyrus

Date and time

September 28, 2010, 8:10AM

Throwing the next 5 years away on a glorified membership run. What are they thinking?

Commenter

D Advocate

Date and time

September 28, 2010, 8:10AM

There is no way of knowing whether this is a good or bad decision and there won't be for about 2-3 years. Anyone pronouncing judgment right now is talking out of their bottom just to try and sound 'knowledgeable' about football. Anyone commenting about Essendon's internal workings who is not an actual employee at Essendon should shut up because they're just making themselves look like idiots. Time will tell on this matter and that's all anybody with any sense and intelligence can say.

Commenter

Kit

Date and time

September 28, 2010, 8:31AM

James Hird has done nothing wrong over the past 2 months. He has protected the interests of the Essendon playing group and the Essendon Football Club after most of the players complained of Matthew Knights' lack of interpersonal skills. And, my source who is very close to Kevin Sheedy has told me that Mark Thompson will stay at Geelong in 2011!!